Personal mobile communication/computing devices, such as cellular telephones, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and two-way pagers, have become commonplace in many countries. These devices can be collectively referred to as “mobile devices”. Many of the latest generation of mobile devices provide their users with the ability to access resources on the Internet via wireless telecommunications networks (or simply, “wireless networks”). For example, some of these mobile devices allow their users to access World Wide Web pages, exchange email and download files over the Internet. Devices which can access the World Wide Web (“the Web”) include a software application called a browser, which when implemented in a small (e.g., handheld) mobile device is sometimes more precisely referred to as a “minibrowser” or “microbrowser”. An example of such a browser is the Openwave Mobile Browser produced by Openwave Systems Inc. of Redwood City, Calif.
A device called a gateway is often used to enable these mobile devices to do this. Typically, the gateway is (or includes) a server computer system that is coupled between the wireless network and the Internet. The gateway typically translates/converts between the languages and protocols used on the Internet and the languages and protocols used by the mobile devices. Such a gateway is included in the Openwave Mobile Access Gateway, produced by Openwave Systems Inc. The gateway is typically operated by the communications service provider (CSP), e.g., the operator of the wireless network, also sometimes called the “wireless carrier”. Wireless carriers sometimes use the gateway and associated computer systems to provide additional services to their subscribers (mobile device users), such as content caching, proxying, etc. Wireless carriers also sometimes generate revenue from providing more sophisticated “value added” services and applications to their subscribers, such as location services.
Currently there is substantial interest in providing better ways for users to access published content and application services from their mobile devices. The term “content” in this context can refer to essentially any kind of information, such as text, images (e.g., graphics, photos, animations), sound, etc. One specific type of content, for example, is a Web page. There is significant interest in allowing users to browse the Web from mobile devices more efficiently. Current technology has a number of shortcomings in this regard, which discourage users from using the Web browsing capabilities of their mobile devices.
Many mobile devices use wireless access protocol (WAP) to access the Internet via wireless networks. Web pages can be sent to mobile devices as wireless markup language (WML) over WAP, for example, and displayed on the mobile devices. However, the WAP usage model for Web browsing is problematic. The problems include the fact that WAP is a synchronous protocol, that Web browsing inherently involves serial navigation, and that the Internet and wireless networks tend to have very high latencies. WAP is synchronous in that the user must wait for a response to each WAP request. This fact, combined with high network latencies and the requirement of serialize navigation, means that users have to wait repeatedly when Web browsing or accessing applications from their mobile devices, making these processes long and laborious.
For example, assume that a cellular telephone user wants to find out what the weather is currently like in Rome. Accordingly, the user starts up the browser in his cellular telephone. The user then selects an item labeled “Weather” from a menu screen displayed on the phone. This menu is managed by the carrier, which performs an “editorial” or content management function. The user then waits for several seconds while the phone sends a WAP request via the wireless network to a remote server, until the phone receives a reply that causes the phone to display the next screen. The next screen prompts the user to specify whether he wishes to identify a city by ZIP code or by name, for his request. Assume that the user chooses to specify a city by name and makes the appropriate selection. Again the user waits for several seconds, while the telephone sends another WAP request to the remote server via a wireless network, and receives a reply that causes the phone to generate yet another screen, prompting the user to enter the name of the city. The user then uses the keypad of the telephone to type in the name “Rome” and presses the enter key. Yet again, the user waits for several seconds, while another WAP request is sent by the phone over the wireless network, until finally, the current weather in Rome is displayed to the user.
It will be recognized that the foregoing is a time-consuming and tedious process, which discourages users from using the Web browsing capability of their mobile devices. It will also be recognized that this is a very simple example of Web browsing from a mobile device. A more in-depth browsing session would require a correspondingly longer and more tedious process. So, while WAP provides an effective way to publish content (e.g., web pages), it has serious disadvantages in terms of usability when accessing content.
WAP also has disadvantages from the standpoint of content availability. In the WAP model, content is normally expected to be produced by a third-party group of formal content providers, who generally require some financial incentive to produce content.
With the introduction of “3G” mobile devices, mobile devices will have a much broader range of capabilities than ever before. Consequently, it is desirable for wireless carriers to be able to provide a wider range of “value added” services and applications to their subscribers (mobile device users). Doing so would provide end users with a richer experience and would provide wireless carriers with additional ways of generating revenue. The WAP model, in addition to the above-noted shortcomings, is not well adapted to providing wireless carriers with efficient monetization opportunities. Carriers normally bill subscribers for WAP-based browsing on a per-minute or per-byte basis. This billing structure, combined with low volume of use due to the above-noted problems, translates into relatively low profit margins for wireless carriers.
On the other hand, the short messaging service (SMS) is well-adapted to efficient carrier monetization. SMS is an asynchronous person-to-person messaging protocol, by which users can exchange short messages using mobile devices such as cellular telephones. SMS is well-adapted for carrier monetization, at least partly because the infrastructure for cross-carrier tariffing and monetary settlement already exists and is in use for SMS, i.e., SMS centers (SMSCs) of different carriers are already interconnected for billing purposes. Further, SMS is usually billed on a per-message basis, at a very low rate from the perspective of most users. This billing model is also “discrete” for the user; the user is able to predict in advance exactly how much a transaction will cost and knows the unit of billing. The SMS billing model encourages a high volume of use and, therefore, leads to very high profit margins for wireless carriers (typically on the order of 90%).
Further, SMS is asynchronous, in that a user does not have to wait for a response after sending an SMS message. Because SMS is asynchronous, it is also well-adapted to use in the presence of high latency.
What is needed, therefore, is a solution that provides a powerful way for wireless subscribers to publish and access many types of content from their mobile devices, in a manner which is user friendly so as to encourage use, and which provides wireless carriers with an efficient way to derive revenue.